A business plan is any plan that works for a business to look ahead, allocate resources, focus on key points, and prepare for problems and opportunities.

Here’s how to write one without boring the life out of its readers: Don’t Make My Eyes Bleed

I read Seth Godin’s “The Dip: The Little Book that Teaches You When to Quit and When to Stick” over the weekend.

It has some interesting approaches to life and work. Let me paraphrase:

If you (or your company) want to be “the best in the world” at something…you need to work through the beginning phase of development and be able to hang on and evolve through the long development phase, which he calls “the dip”…and you need to drop any distracting investments of time and money for which you do not have adequate advantage to make it through “the dip” — this is called “intelligent quitting”.

The long development phase, which can get progressively more difficult, might be a “dip” with success at the end of the tunnel, or a “cul-de-sac”—a place where you can work forever and never get the rainbow. And you have to learn to discern the difference…

There are big advantages that accrue to those who are “best in the world”.

The Dip is a very interesting and inspiring book which I encourage everyone to read. You can take a lot of meaning from its pages but to me, the book’s main idea is that usually “overnight success” is not actually overnight. For you to become really, really successful you often have to go through an extended period of time where you work VERY hard yet you don’t actually feel like you are making any progress.

This article describes this situation perfectly: The Long Grind Before You Become an Overnight Success.

The lesson here is that if you are working on a new idea, a new business, a new product…a new anything then you should be prepared for the long and hard-fought “dip” which you very probably will go through on your way to success.

Freemium is a business model that works by offering core services or products for free, while charging a premium for advanced or special features.

Go here to learn all about The Freemium business model.

In Kenya today, many organisations seem to have taken to Outsourcing. There are many different tasks, roles and responsibilities that you as the business owner can outsource. The greatest thing is that outsourcing in the long term actually makes savings for your business.

Some noticeable outsourcing services that have really been pushed into the Kenyan market to date are courier services, security services, office cleaning, IT support and other concierge services. I don’t think there are any cleaning ladies any more, even in government buildings you will notice that they have a company doing all the cleaning work. Perhaps smaller businesses are still hiring a cleaning lady for obvious reasons non the less.
I personally use courier services a lot. How simplified life has become especially in this age where fuel prices are on the rise every month. It saves you having to do the other mundane tasks such as queuing in the bank and in other offices, making deliveries, renewing driving licenses, making payments, collecting purchases, it’s phenomenal and its going to newer heights. The costs tied to the courier services are pretty low compared to the cost of you being stuck in traffic and you wasting time in a queue.

A cleaning service or IT support service will help you reduce costs such as wages and related human resource costs, supervision costs, costs of materials such as detergents and tools of the trade, office space etc .

Though there is so much good from outsourcing, what’s the flip side you need to pay attention to?

1. Once again it comes down to the quality of the service being provided by the outsource. Whenever your business is not receiving the quality that you expect for a certain rate then something doesn’t add up.
2. Just because you outsource a service for your organisation should not mean that you leave the outsource to run its own show, they should be able to blend into your business easily.
3. You should be engaged in what they are doing and demand improvements when they are necessary. You as the client should be sure that the outsource is meeting all the needs that you have, if not perhaps reassess the situation.
4. Outsource should be used where you see it will bring your business most benefit. It is important to do the mathematics of how much you will save by using an outsource vis a vis how much you are spending without the outsource. Get it down to the numbers.
5. Don’t outsource just because everyone else is outsourcing because it could do you more harm than good do what fits for your company. Businesses are different.
6. Be careful that your outsource is there to enhance the experience that your customers are receiving otherwise what’s the point?

Naomi Kinyanjui is an aspiring enterpreneur, a Procurement Specialist by profession with a passion for life, writing and making a difference. Follow her on Procurement Mentality 101 blog where the talk is all about supply chain and procurement and maintaining professionalism in such a controversial field.

Kamal Budhabatti is a name you should probably register in your mind for posterity reasons. This is a man who is set to conquer the world. The unassuming Indian-Kenyan entrepreneur is working relentlessly towards putting African software on the global map, and he is succeeding. Kamal is the founder and Chief Executive Officer of Craft Silicon, a Kenya-based global software development and services company worth around Ksh 1.7 billion and with an annual income of over Ksh 500 million, sources more than 85% of its business from without Kenya offering software solutions in different languages including French, English, Arabic and Spanish across Africa, Asia, Europe and America.

The League of Young Professionals warmly invites you for an Entrepreneurship Forum:
Date – Thursday 25th of August, 2011.
Time – 6:00pm to 8:00pm.
Venue – Marble Arch Hotel (Behind Fire Station, Next to Akamba)
Charge – Kshs 500/-

Our Guest Speaker will be Kamal Budhabatti – Founder and CEO Craft Silicon. He will share with us his Entrepreneurial Journey and the Secrets of the Success of Craft Silicon.

It seems like rocket science to many small businesses in Nairobi. Customer service is not always easy to get, though at the rate some businesses give it you would think it is in short supply.

Visiting a local franchise restaurant in town the other day, I sat for about 20minutes before my waitress even realised I was there. I knew right off the bat that there was going to be no tip and that keeping my cool would be an uphill task from there on out.

What’s challenging in getting staff to offer your customers good service? I mean I love the restaurant but now I know that I will most likely never return to that branch.

Bad customer service impacts negatively on your business, so it is time for you to make sure that you have staff who care about the level of service that they are offering your customers. It’s easy to do, it is not rocket science, and they just need to understand that customer is king, as the adage goes. The interaction your staff have on a daily basis with your customers means it is one of those things that should be non negotiable. Obviously you cannot be there to interact personally with every customer you have so the option is to simply train your employees on how to handle customers.

When you give customers good service, they will sing about it all they can, non stop, to everyone and above all they won’t shy away at recommending you to others. Word of mouth spreads like wild fire, negative word of mouth spreads even faster and kills your brand. Rather, kills the brand that you are trying to build.
Why should it take more than one day to respond to a customer query online? By the time some companies out there have responded to a customer email complaint or query, you as the customer have even forgotten what it is you were complaining about or why for that matter. Same case goes to returning a phone call, you will even be lucky to get called back so never hold your breath on that one.

It’s up to you to know where you want your organisation to go to, up and away or down to the dogs. Really, it is not rocket science, pay attention to your customer service.

Naomi Kinyanjui is an aspiring enterpreneur, a Procurement Specialist by profession with a passion for life, writing and making a difference. Follow her on Procurement Mentality 101 blog where the talk is all about supply chain and procurement and maintaining professionalism in such a controversial field.

Don’t punish everyone for one person’s mistake.